We spent a few years attending church in a highly populated Mexican community, meetings were in Spanish and church activities were full of delicious spicy Mexican dishes that we came to absolutely LOVE! One of my good friends from the branch always brought this deliciousness and I came to seriously look forward to it... Tinga. It is now my all time favorite Mexican dish... hands down!
It is simple as pie to make (although I don't think pie is very easy to make... just saying) and absolutely to die for. It can be eaten plain on a tostada, in a tortilla, or one of my favorite ways... in a casadilla with cheese (and butter on the outside of the tortilla... makes it nice and crispy... oh my mouth is watering!) Shall we begin?
INGREDIENTS
Chicken (1 whole roaster, cooked and taken off the bone)
1 Large Onion
1 Can of Adobe Chili Peppers
Chicken broth or bullion
1 Large can of diced tomatoes (I know I have crushed here... and they have basil in them... but that's what I had on hand and it turned out just fine! Delicious as always!)
DIRECTIONS
Begin by taking all the chicken that has been previously cooked off the bone. I like to use an entire roaster so there is a nice mix of white meat and dark meat. However, you can use whatever you have on hand... just thighs make excellent tinga as well!
Take all the chicken and shred it. The easiest way to accomplish this is using your hands. Shredding it gives you long thing pieces of chicken allowing it to clump together like pulled pork, much better than dicing it promise. Once your chicken is shredded, set it to the side.
Time for the onion! Cut your onion into nice thin strips so it matches the shape of the chicken. The onion and chicken mix nicely when cut into strips allowing everything to mix together for some superb flavor!
Start by pouring a few tablespoons of oil into the bottom of a large frying pan and sauteing your onion. Keep cooking that deliciously smelly thing until it is pretty translucent. Once it has reached a wilted translucent state, dump the tomatoes in. If you use crushed tomatoes, you won't need any additional liquid but I would recommend adding a bullion cube for some flavor. If you use diced tomatoes, you might want to add about a cup of chicken broth (or bullion!) to the mixture, this time for both liquid and flavor.
You'll want to continue to cook this mixture until the oil starts to separate and rise to the top of the pan. It won't take long really, just until everything is nice and hot. When you're ready, dump in the chicken and mix everything together so the chicken can start soaking in all those delicious tomatoe-y onion-y juices!
When everything is mixed, add in a few teaspoons of the SAUCE ONLY from the adobe peppers. In all reality, you can add as much as you want. I typically add about 6-7 teaspoons. That keeps the spiciness to a minimum, allowing Christopher to still eat it. You can however blended a few peppers with some chicken broth and then add it to the chicken mixture. This is going to seriously amp up the spice as well as the flavor though! So experiment... get the spiciness level right where you want it. Just remember... once you add it in, you can't take it out!
Let everything simmer together for approximately 15-20 minutes until the chicken is turning a nice red color and the smells are teasing you so badly you just can't wait another minute to eat!!
As I sad before, tinga can be eaten a number of ways. The simplest way to eat it is piled up onto a tostada (like these!) Mexican's don't put cheese on it... although American's tend to add cheese so totally your call. My favorite way is to make quesadillas out of it. This is an excellent option if you happen to have added too much spice... the cheese and tortilla can tone down the spice a bit.
However you eat it, enjoy it!! It is a unique flavor for sure... and one of my very very favorites!!
